Life and Island Times – May 10, 2016

Air Sometimes

Marlow first arrived at the end of the road back in ’74. He made his way down to the tropical mile marker zero astride a Japanese 3-holer motorcycle.

Riding the Keys 42 bridges that day, he marveled at Henry Flagler’s vision, chutzpah and wealth that enabled Marlow’s two-wheeled, sea top flight over the water. Cruising the 7-mile bridge, he saw nothing but a thin asphalt ribbon bisecting the coral reefed, azure tinted sea and crystal blue sky. The air was heavy with salt and the scent of decaying seaweed. Pelicans glided overhead while seagulls keened as he passed them by on their perches on the rusty Overseas Railroad rails that served as bridge railings.

Approaching the road’s end, the sun began to set, alighting the skies with a kaleidoscope of color he had never seen in his 25 years.

He rode past the U.S. Highway 1’s zero mile marker on Whitehead Street and then on to Key West’s western end at Mallory docks. A rag tag assortment of hippies, musicians, street preachers, and food vendors selling items from their bicycle baskets ambled about its wooden dock with many sipping from open containers of beer, wine and booze. The faint aromas of various grades of pot wafted about and began to fog his mind.

As the sun began to touch the sea, all turned their attention to watch it set. When it disappeared, they applauded and shouted their huzzahs.

In the days that followed, this same gathering repeated itself daily. Marlow wondered if they were awaiting something. Was it an arrival or a departure?

Months passed, and Marlow found himself falling in love with the island’s rhythms. Some non-native residents got rock fever, needing either the mainland’s creature comforts or homogenized sameness to comfort their souls.

Sometimes this condition struck its victims late in the day. It was then that they experienced LFO syndrome. At these times, it was too late to drive the darkened US 1 roadway with its abundance of beer and bong buzzed drivers, so they would manically turn to the airport.

The Last Flight Out on Air Sunshine was scheduled for 11 PM. Locals affectionately called the airline Air Sometimes, given its WW II vintage DC-3s, which were older than their pilots and of dubious reliability. Consequently, savvy ticketed passengers adopted a semper gumby attitude towards scheduled arrival and departure times.

Back in those days, most island bars closed around 10PM. Consequently, the airport lounge, then called the Conch Flyer, was open until 2 AM or 4 AM or . . . depending on the customers, would begin filling up around 1015 PM.

By half past ten, it was packed. Overflow customers sat outside under the stars of the Milky Way on bistro chairs at tables with sun bleached Cinzano umbrellas placed on the airport ramp’s tarmac.

The Flyer was better than Alice’s Restaurant. You could get anything you wanted – food, beer, wine, booze, herb, music, regular and exotic dance, song, and company of all kinds and persuasions.

Sometimes the Air Sometimes’ LFO flight crew was in attendance, making it necessary for passengers to extend their stay in paradise another day. Accommodations, like everyone/thing else in town, were easily had.

Forty-some years later Marlow has tentatively concluded that what the Mallory docks and LFO revelers were awaiting was neither a departure or arrival. It was life they were simply celebrating which is a collection of comings and goings.

Key West International Airport & Conch Flyer logo

From My Isle Seat © 2016